


Stand There and Bleed

by masterwords



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Aaron Hotchner Whump, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, David Rossi Whump, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Knifeplay, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29243718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masterwords/pseuds/masterwords
Summary: “You didn't need to bring your guns,” Blackwolf said softly as Hotch pushed the door open.  He smiled.“I wouldn't be here right now if you didn't have a murderer on the loose,” Hotch said, setting his bag down and removing his guns from their holsters, placing them safely into his bag.  “I'll be the judge of what I need and when.”“Your reliance on guns makes you weak,” Blackwolf approached him, extending his hand for a quick, friendly shake.  “That's why you're here.”“Is it?”
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	Stand There and Bleed

“Have fun at dinner guys,” Hotch called as he swung his bag over his shoulder and locked up his hotel room. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Where's he off to?” Dave asked, raising an eyebrow. It wasn't often that he was not privy to knowing Hotch's plans, he was a little shocked. Hotch disappeared down the hallway and into the exit stairwell, preferring that over the elevator nearly every time. Morgan chuckled. 

“You don't know?” he asked, and shot Reid a goofy little look. It took Reid a second before he figured it out and grinned too.

“Oh yeahhhhh. Right. New Mexico.”

“What are you not telling me?” Rossi asked, turning to follow the others down toward the elevator. They were all starving. It had been a long day, the unsub was still eluding them, they were all beat, ready for dinner and bed. This conversation, intriguing as it may be, was wearing on Rossi's nerves. He wished they'd just say it already. 

“He thinks we don't know,” Morgan said, pressing the button to call the elevator. “Every time we come down here for a case, he disappears.”

“A woman?” Dave asked, leaning against the railing in the elevator, clearly intrigued but getting frustrated. The elevator smelled like cigarettes and beer. 

“No,” Reid said, shaking his head. “Definitely not.”

On the other side of town, Hotch threw his SUV into park in an empty parking lot and regarded the small school gymnasium with a smile. There were only two streetlamps lighting the lot, but the windows in the gymnasium cast an orange glow on the dirt outside. He grabbed his bag from the passenger seat and left the vehicle, knowing that he'd find the doors unlocked and ready for him. He could smell the freshly waxed floors, his tennis shoes squeaking along the corridor toward the gymnasium. He peered in through the windows, saw his friend standing inside, silently staring in the direction of the door. 

“You didn't need to bring your guns,” Blackwolf said softly as Hotch pushed the door open. He smiled. 

“I wouldn't be here right now if you didn't have a murderer on the loose,” Hotch said, setting his bag down and removing his guns from their holsters, placing them safely into his bag. “I'll be the judge of what I need and when.” 

“Your reliance on guns makes you weak,” Blackwolf approached him, extending his hand for a quick, friendly shake. “That's why you're here.” 

“Is it?”

They began as they always did, simple sparring without contact. Slow, easy movements on the squeaking gymnasium floor. They mimicked the moves they'd practiced for years, like a slow dance, drawing on intense eye contact and extreme concentration. Moves memorized, motions that were ingrained in their muscles. To anyone watching it would almost appear like a ballet, with Blackwolf leading and Hotchner following, then they'd switch off. It was beautiful. Like living poetry. Once they'd exhausted that, they moved on to basic sparring, still soft, pulling punches at the last moment but using their own instincts, their own motions. And then they were using their full force, all their knowledge and skill, not pulling punches though not trying to hurt each other either. Blackwolf landed on his back, the wind knocked out of him when Hotchner managed to sweep his legs. After that moment of weakness, Blackwolf was in charge. He punched, he cornered his friend, he swept his legs. As Hotch scrambled to his feet, he threw his elbow to disarm the other man, but caught him at an awkward angle and ended up cracking his nose. They both froze and then the red came. Hotch's vision swam, he saw stars, he tasted the metallic tang of the blood before he felt it. He sputtered, choking on it as it gushed through his sinuses and down his throat. He spit. 

“Hotchner,” Blackwolf shouted, approaching his friend cautiously. Aaron was standing, bent in half, his chest heaving, blood flowing in deep red rivers down his face, over his lips, pooling on the floor. 

“It's fine, just a bloody nose,” Hotch said, grabbing the bottom of his tshirt and tugging it over his head, stuffing it hard against his face to stop the bleeding as he coughed, trying to make sure he didn't swallow any more of it. The pressure sent a flame of blinding pain through his face, his nose was definitely broken. So much for no one asking questions. 

“Your only strong moves are defensive,” Blackwolf said, taking his own shirt off now to wipe up the puddle of blood at his friend's feet. He'd grab a mop when they were done, this was only to remove danger of slipping. He knew they weren't done, Hotch didn't give up so easily. “When you are engaged in hand to hand combat, you need to attack smart and be in control. Defense will help but it isn't how you win against an opponent like me.” They went at it again, and again Hotch was doubled over bleeding. 

“Broken branches,” Blackwolf had said as he wiped up Hotch's blood for a second time. “Training injured, it is to your advantage to understand your weakness, use it even. The theory is called broken branches by some, I think that sounds nice if you need that sort of thing. I think you need that sort of thing. You are a like a tree, one of your limbs is damaged, how do you stay standing? How do you win?” Blackwolf stood and discarded his bloody shirt, faced his friend. He was grasping at straws, trying to give Hotch something firm to hold onto, something to use when he couldn’t have his gun, something that would save his life. “Try again.” 

They squared up again, holding sticks in their hands to simulate knives. Aaron hated knives. He'd watched his mother wield one in the kitchen once, in a memory that felt like it belonged to someone else. It was faded, fuzzy, but he could hear her voice clearly. Don't you dare come near me again, she'd yelled. It was the turning point, when his father had started coming for him instead of her. Because she'd gone on the offensive, and it scared him. Hotch knew she hadn't intended for that to happen, for him to change targets, but he had and she'd been complacent in her fear, he didn't hate her for it. She never pulled the knife out again, it had scared her that she even did it, that she let her son see it. Blackwolf knocked him around some more, sending him flying across the floor over and over. It wasn't that Hotch didn't know how to fight, after a certain point though, he just couldn't. There was something inside of him he couldn't push aside, something there that stopped him. Finally, when Blackwolf had disarmed him and sprayed his blood all over the wall for a third time, they stopped. 

“Hotchner?” Blackwolf asked, approaching his friend carefully, like a wounded animal. Something had changed in him during those last moments. Hotch was hunched over, bleeding again, chest heaving, in obvious pain. But he wouldn't concede. He kept saying he was fine. Over and over, he was fine, he was okay. Go again. And again. He'd never stop, it would never be enough. Blackwolf put his hand on Hotch's bare, sweaty back and watched as his friend twisted angrily away from the advance before realizing what he'd done and softening up. 

“Really...I'm fine.”

“I know,” Blackwolf said, raising his hands in surrender. It was that moment that he understood why it was his friend never stopped defending himself and why he rarely attacked. It wasn't a lack of understanding, a lack of training, it was instinct. His gut reaction when his immediate offense, his gun, was removed from his possession was just to survive – and that, Blackwolf understood from his own upbringing and those around him in the town he lived in, stemmed from abuse. Angry, drunk fathers who hated their own lives and took it out on anyone they could, especially their weak, innocent children. Complacent mothers. Brothers, uncles, cousins, sisters, aunts...they all fed into it. He recognized it because he understood it, he saw it in many his own students through the years. That flash of rage in the eyes that gave way to a raw, primal will to survive. It wasn't about attacking or winning, just living. And sadness, brokenness, because the people they loved had made them this way. People who were supposed to protect them were the ones they needed protection from. And they still loved them, in spite of it all. He saw all of that in his friend's eyes, in the pool of blood at his feet, in his raw knuckles and desperate eyes. 

“Aaron,” he said, in a softer tone, using the other man's first name. It was a formal move, a tactical move, to disarm him emotionally. Blackwolf had never called him by his first name in all their years of friendship, not once. “You don't have to prove yourself to me. I'm only trying to help you, not hurt you.” 

“I know...” Hotch sputtered through blood soaked lips. “What makes you...” then he stopped, he paused, and he understood. He'd been profiled. His demeanor shifted, his posture softened. “You should have gone into the FBI. We'd scoop you up in a heartbeat.”

“I would rather die, but thank you. Let's clean up, we can't let the kids see this mess, they'll have me calling you in to investigate a murder. That's the last thing I need.” They didn't say anything else. Hotch didn't want to answer questions, Blackwolf didn't want to ask them. The lines of their friendship had been blurred. What was once so well defined, so easy, now seemed chaotic and new but they could maneuver it. Figure it out. Build back stronger, more understanding. They'd start by mopping up Hotch's blood from the gymnasium floor. 

He spent that night with a ziplock bag full of ice on his face and hands, a mess of swollen features and knuckles, eating a fast food burrito he'd picked up on his way back to the hotel and chasing it with ibuprofen and cheap beer, watching Tombstone. At least the movie was good, even if the rest left a lot to be desired. He didn't bother to try and come up with an excuse for his broken nose, he figured at least Reid and Morgan had already known where he'd been, where he always went, it wasn't a big deal anymore. 

“What happened to you last night?” Rossi asked, indicating the deep black circles under his friend's eyes and his swollen nose. Hotch just smiled. It was unhinged and a little scary with his broken nose and his puffy eyes. He looked like a boxer. 

“Met up with an old friend.” 

“Doesn't look too friendly, kiddo,” Rossi said, smirking. Hotch chuckled. It was a a pained chuckle, a little sadistic and self-deprecating. Blackwolf had figured him out, had seen to his core, something that not many other people had done. He felt exposed, but there was a freedom in it. Blackwolf, at that moment, knew him deeper and better than anyone else, if only by way of bloodshed. It had to count for something. 

Their unsub was tricky, but they figured him out and tracked him down. They found him in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town, broken down and dusty. Morgan and Prentiss entered from the back, Rossi and Hotch from the front. The unsub knew the building inside and out, had watched Hotch and Rossi enter. He waited until the opportune moment and then leaped out, using his own body as a projectile to take both he and Rossi down a long flight of stairs. The sound of them slamming against the aging metal and glass echoed through the building. 

“Morgan, 4th floor! Officer down!” Hotch called into the comm at his wrist. He didn't wait for a response before descending the staircase. He found Rossi at the bottom, in clear pain, shoved up against the corner at an awkward angle and unable to move. 

“Go get him,” Rossi grumbled through gritted teeth, hugging his arms around his chest. Hotch looked him over, noted the blood and the pain and wanted to stay, put his hand to his friend's face, but Rossi shoved him away. “GO!” One last look was all it took before Hotch stood and ran down the next flight of stairs, in pursuit. He'd almost made it to the bottom of the stairs before his feet were knocked out from under him and he went flying into the open room. He sprawled out, all hands and feet like a flying squirrel and felt his wrist pop and snap as he landed. Hugging his injured arm to his chest, he looked around momentarily and heard his gun being kicked away from him. He was disoriented and in pain, but he managed to stand up, and with his injured hand, he found the knife at his waist. Slowly he spun, around and around until he saw the unsub. With one hand free and one very painful hand concealing his knife, he approached. It was slow at first, but he remembered what Blackwolf had told him about broken branches, his arm being broken wasn't the end of his fight. He switched hands, held his knife in his good hand, his injured arm against his chest, using it as a decoy. He knew the other man would be emboldened by the sight of an obvious injury and Hotch played it up. Broken branches, he tried to focus. Use it. They circled each other, the unsub wielding a large knife, Hotch his smaller one, neither of them had a gun at their disposal. Hotch slashed at him, once, twice, finally incapacitating his arm and forcing him to use the other before the unsub tripped him, sent him flying. He held his knife firm in his hand and used his injured arm to break his fall, groaning at the intense pain that burned through him. He pushed to his feet and launched at the other man, a ball of fury and torment, finally landing a blow to his good arm, sending the knife crashing across the room. Hotch leaped at him, held onto him until JJ and Morgan appeared and took the unsub into custody, Prentiss close behind with Reid as backup. Without even looking at them, Hotch sprung from the unsub and rushed back to Rossi who was being tended to by the EMTs on the scene. 

“You shouldn't have come in yet,” he scolded, but the EMT just looked at him unaffected and shrugged. “You could have been hurt. You need to wait for the scene to be cleared!”

“We were told to,” he said softly, immobilizing Rossi while his partner started an IV and helped get him onto a body board to be carried up the stairs. He wondered how long the EMT had been there, if they'd listened to the fight, if they'd been afraid. They shouldn't have come in, but they did. As he watched them tend to his friend, he was angry but glad. 

“Dave,” Hotch called, “I'll see you at the hospital.” He hugged his injured arm close to him and sighed, sinking into the wall behind him, feeling the adrenaline course through his veins. He was still gripping his knife. Morgan approached after a few minutes, he came from the side and stood beside his boss. 

“Let me drive you to the hospital, your arm looks bad,” he said softly, a little protectively. Morgan was in control now, and Hotch was okay with that, he didn't have anything to prove by standing up to the other man. Hotch nodded and grunted, pushing off of the wall and standing straight before heaving himself up the stairs, refusing Morgan's offer of help. 

“It doesn't feel great,” he muttered, taking one step at a time, slowly, knowing Morgan was right behind him expecting that he'd fall at any time. He didn't. 

At the hospital, Hotch was waiting in the ER after having been quickly patched up, pacing back and forth in the lobby waiting to hear news about Rossi. His arm was in a sling, splinted at the wrist, awaiting treatment from his own physician back home. He'd insisted and for some reason, they'd allowed it. They'd tried to give him pain meds but he refused that too, wanting to just get out of there as quickly as possible. As he paced, though, he regretted the decision – every time he moved, or breathed, it was agony. He just pushed through it. 

“How do you plan to shoot your gun now?” Blackwolf asked, approaching Hotch from across the waiting area. Hotch scowled and shrugged. 

“I didn't use my gun today,” he said, rather proudly. “Broken branches.” 

Blackwolf smiled. “I guess you can teach and old dog new tricks,” he said, patting his friend on the back. “I just came to say goodbye, figured you'd be getting into that fancy jet of yours soon. I'll see you next time you're down this way, Hotchner. Not too soon, I hope...we can't take this kind of excitement in these parts.” 

“I think...” Hotch said, affecting a serious tone for the first time. “I think maybe it's your turn to head out my way. This friendship is starting to feel very one sided.” Blackwolf shook his head and sighed. 

“Whatever you say, FBI,” and he walked away grinning. Hotch hadn't ever invited him out, hadn't even admitted to his team that they were friends. He was turning over a new leaf, or at least inspecting it. Blackwolf figured he'd throw the other man a bone, maybe book a speaking engagement or two at colleges nearby and go make his friend bleed again. Or maybe, Hotch might make him bleed. Stranger things had happened. 

Back at the hotel, Hotch had decided to set up camp in Rossi's room instead of his own. Afterall, his friend had taken quite a beating that afternoon and would probably need help, he reasoned. He also just didn’t want to be alone. They weren't flying out until morning, so they'd have to deal with one more night. He'd ordered them room service and secured enough ice packs and ibuprofen for the both of them and their party of misery, even managed to find Tombstone on TV again because Rossi said he hadn't seen it. His arm was wrapped in an ice pack, swollen and throbbing but he didn't pay it much attention while he fussed over making Rossi comfortable and getting him food. 

“Why didn't you tell anyone where you were going?” Rossi asked, holding an ice pack against his sore ribs. He was trying to eat but even that was painful. His arms and back were covered in bandages and stitches from broken glass on the warehouse floor, years of vagrants breaking in windows to live inside had created a carpet of sharp objects ripe for ripping skin. He'd fallen right into it, and broken a few ribs on the way down. He was lucky not to have been hurt worse, but he didn't feel lucky at that particular moment. Hotch was busy regarding the question, staring at the television, remembering being a child and wishing he'd been Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday long before this movie turned them into heroes for a generation. Their righteous anger, their ability to succeed no matter the odds, the fact that Wyatt Earp was real. He'd been an adult when this movie came out but he'd felt like a child all over again, playing with his toy revolvers in the woods with his friends, times that were complicated and painful but also simple. Friends that made the hard stuff bearable. They always let him play Wyatt the law man, even if some of them would grumble about it not being fair and someone else should get a turn...they always let him anyway. 

“I'm selfish,” he said with a shrug. “I guess I figured if I told them, they'd want to come too. I wanted to keep it to myself. John Blackwolf is...cool. I finally have a cool friend.” Hotch smiled, in an almost childlike way, only sharing half of the truth. The rest was for him. He deserved to have some secrets, after all. It made Rossi laugh, followed by a groan of agony. 

“What am I, chopped liver?”


End file.
